As If We Needed Another Reason Why Single-Payer Is The Only Workable Option

It now appears that the recent pledge by the health care mucky-mucks to President Obama that they would reduce costs in the future was so much hot air by people who should have known better. Every previous attempt to control costs by hospital consortiums or the AMA have been shot down by the Justice Department Anti-Trust Division as price fixing, even though they were trying to fix a maximum, not a minimum price for care. Details here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/health/policy/27health.html?ref=us
This problem is another that would disappear utterly if we were to adopt a single-payer health care system funded by the government, along with those other pesky little problems such as the uninsured, the underinsured, the people who go bankrupt due to medical bills, the burden on U.S. manufacturers and other employers, or the incalculable cost in human suffering of sick people skipping treatment because they'd rather eat and pay the rent.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/16/health.care.survey.deloitte/index.html?iref=newssearch
Under an monopsonistic system, the government would be setting the maximum prices, not the providers. The government can't very well prosecute itself for price fixing. The dirty little secret is that the savings can only come from the limits on providers' compensation as determined by the government. That might work to the disadvantage of some players in the health care market, particularly pharmaceutical companies, who would see the advantages of their patent-derived monopolies whittled away. They might be forced to accept the rates of return on investment that the rest of us enjoy rather than the immense profits they have been reaping thanks to the above-mentioned monopoly. It might also lead to the departure from the market of those providers who are only in medicine for the money. Somewhere a tiny violin is playing a very sad song.
What this reveals about the big players in health care is that their pledge to reduce costs was mere window dressing. The same players are funding the disingenous ad campaigns that demonize any public option for health insurance by lobbing the usual canards: long waits, government control of health decisions, no choice of doctor, death, warts, bad breath, etc. A reading of the proposals for single-payer health care, H.R. 676 or S. 703, quickly puts all those lies in their place. S. 703 is considerably more complex and less elegant than the House version, but is also more in line with the need to transition smoothly from our current fractured system. Both bills guarantee that doctors may act as private entities and patients may see the doctor of their choice. We need a sustained campaign to publicize the truth about a workable single-payer plan that will withstand the onslaught from those who profit from other people's ill health.